Hi, I do almost exactly what you do...listen, listen, listen. The technique, the craft of horn playing is the easy part, really. The art of music is the hard part. How does my part "fit" with the rest of the music? Should I be leading or following? Who else is playing? You can't learn that stuff from just your part alone. If I don't have a recording, I get one. Several, if possible. When I was in school (and this was back in the days of LPs and no computers to "creatively acquire" music, I was a regular haunt at the used record store. I have probably 15 or 20 differnt recordings of the Mozart concerti, and four or five of Strauss, and lots of symphonic stuff including contemporary music.
I played Rachmaninov Symphony No 2 this past January, and had three different recordings available. The point is not to find one and copy how it is played, but to take elements from each and incorporate them into how I approach the music. It's too easy to tell when a player can play the notes as opposed to play the music; I have seen countless posts by professional players who say that they hear auditions where the player has great technique, but has no musical sense of what they are playing. In the case of your bassoonist, that is the bane of existence in community bands and orchestras. And yes it is rude to ask, but only because in this day and age people can't handle the truth. I on the other hand would take the feedback to heart and fix the problem, particularly if it came from someone in another section! It's bad enough if your principal addresses it, but when it comes from another section... I have also been known to get copies of the other horn parts. You never know what can happen. Case in point was several years ago when I was asked to play assistant on Beethoven 9. Two days before the concert, the fourth horn got sick, and I was asked if I could play fourth. I already had the music, and had no reservations whatsoever about coming in to play fourth, including the solo. I listened to a couple of different recordings, and in particular got some ideas on how I would want to play the scale. Nailed the damn thing, too. Why? Because I knew how to play all the notes in horizontal sense, and because I studied how the notes fit in the vertical structure of the music. The same kind of thing happened when I was in Chicago; the principal horn at the University of Champagne-Urbana got sick and couldn't play Tchaik 5. I went in prepared to play the entire symphony, not just the solo. I played "Cats" last month. First thing I did was go get a video of the London production, before I even had the music. I went into the first rehearsal not only knowing the music, but also a general idea of how it was going to be staged. I fear that poor musicality is becoming a product of the changes in American education. Critical thinking and analytical skills are no longer emphasized; we simply "teach to a test." And so it seems with music. I'm going to try to hear your concert, Mr Baucom. I've been wanting to join your orchestra, and based on your post, I would definitely want to be in your section. And you thought you went on a rant! Gary Just down the road... Get Firefox!!http://www.mozilla.org/products/firefox/central.html _______________________________________________ post: horn@music.memphis.edu unsubscribe or set options at http://music2.memphis.edu/mailman/options/horn/archive%40jab.org
